Savannah Breen

Triumph of the Will is perhaps the merriest film to have such a severe capacity to chill me down to the bone. Every moment is courageous, optimistic, and and dripping with the sweetest patriotism ever put to screen all while an ominous swastika sits unobtrusively present in the foreground, or, more worrisome, the background. It is as frightening to know the meaning of the symbol so warily omnipresent as to be aware of the effectiveness which it must have captured the minds of the viewers. All the while watching the film I shivered at the constant thought ringing in my mind that if I were an uneducated German in 1935, by God, this film would have worked. Perhaps Tomosulo sums it up best when he states that "the film emphasizes upbeat and patriotic themes that convey a renewed sense of national identity and unity following a period of economic and political instability" (Tomoulo, 84). The film focuses on the unity of people, often utilizing crowd shots of the ordinary people together in celebration or the proud Nazi soldiers standing in line under their beloved and benevolent leader. Neale explains that Hitler serves as a means of "anchoring" the crowd (Neale, 287). And as he dominates the frame, he dominates the mentality of the viewer. It signifies safety, comfort, unity, and the codification intensifies and engrains the ideals into the head. The swastika, also, an image to us serves as a haunting semiotic, is within the film a neutral, even comforting presence. As Tomosulo states, "the unconscious social effects of the swastika help explain fascism’s mass appeal and its frequent display in Triumph of the Will"; it is forever present, all-seeing, all knowing and benevolent (Tomasulo, 83). Is it then, so easy to make a Nazi? Where does Reifensthal stand in all of this? The question of the ethics of documentary, in this case propaganda, become strikingly present when confronted with such a film. It is clear that by the very nature of documentary, as representations of reality, carry a unique responsibility to their audience and to their subjects. They serve as mirrors of reality, intentionally making a case for a particular perception. So often toxic elements of cinema are dismissed as "a product of its time", "self-expression" or protected under the guise of "freedom of speech". What does it say, then, when a film sets out to make a Nazi, and, even worse, succeeds?